Nascar Peeves

With the NASCAR racing season beginning to gear up with running of the Busch Shootout this Sunday in Daytona, culminating with crowing the Sprint Cup Champion on Sunday, November 22, in Homestead. Drivers will be begin accumulating points with the running of the Daytona 500, and I have a few problems with how we determine that winner and for that matter the rankings among drivers.

Lets start with qualifying. The top 36 drivers in the standings are basically assured a starting position as long as they can turn a lap at any given track. That leaves seven starting positions for the remaining cars in the field. A driver that has the 40th fast qualifying time maybe going home if one of the big boys in the top 10 had a bad qualifying run. Some drivers run better on a different types of tracks while others may struggle. Seems like a no brainer to me, that the top 42 qualify for the event regardless of standings. Who could afford was wasted trip more, one of the top dogs or one of the teams that struggle to make the show on any given weekend. The 43rd position would be a provisional as the discretion of the track and is not eligible for any points in the race. That would certainly put a premium on consistency. A bad qualifying run by a top ten driver could certainly shake up the driver standings.

While we are on qualifying, lets put our pedal to the metal and reward the fastest qualifier with 5 bonus points. Isn’t that the equivalent to leading a lap, or leading the most laps? Now of course, the driver would have to start the race with the same car and the same engine, any modifications from the qualifying run, would result not only from starting from the rear of the field, but also the loss of qualifying points. Would that make a difference? Who knows, but it would be one step closer to crowning the most consistent driver of the season.

Through the course of the year, the champion of the series should be the best driver in the series, is that not the idea? So when you look at the last ten races of the year, the one thing that jumps out at me is what is Talladega doing in the Chase for the Cup? Winning this race has as little to do with driving skill as to premium on luck. Don’t get me wrong, I love Talladega, but it shouldn’t be one of the final ten races. If I had my way, Talladega and Indianapolis would change dates. That would be a better fit in determining the best driver.

The other element that is missing in the final ten races is the road course. To truly determine the best driver, all types of tracks must be included in the last ten. I think that I would change the Texas and the Sonoma dates. This would give us the road course late in the year, and would take away one of the cookie cutter tracks.

Would this have changed the outcome last year? Probably not Johnson was the class of the field and it showed in his results. Would it have mixed up the standings? Probably a little bit. Using the format above, would we not be closer to crowning the best driver of the year? Without a doubt. With that being said: “Gentlemen, start your engines”.